The 10 Best Recruitment CRM Software Products for 2023 Reviewed

The best recruitment CRM needs to enable you to build a large talent pool and quickly identify, engage, and send offers to top candidates. Different solutions employ various methods to help you achieve this goal, such as AI resume parsing, email automation, and career site building.

In this guide, we’ve reviewed and compared the best recruitment CRM software so you can see the differences between the top 10 recruitment systems on the market and make an informed choice.

The Top Recruitment CRM Systems Ranked

Before we get into the detailed reviews, here’s a quick rundown of the best recruitment CRM software on the market so you have a good idea of where each platform excels:

  1. Monday$10/month/user — A robust, fully customizable platform that merges the functionality of a CRM system and an ATS into a single, easy-to-use solution.
  2. Zoho Recruit$26/month/user — Full-feature talent acquisition solution with AI resume parsing, customizable workflow automation, career site building, and employee referral portals.
  3. Teamtailor Custom price — All-in-one recruiting platform with a simple drag-and-drop career site builder, a live chat widget, custom form support, and automated email correspondence and interview scheduling.
  4. RipplingCustom price — Flexible recruitment platform with advanced automations, fully customizable reports, built-in calendar integrations, and streamlined onboarding.
  5. Manatal$15/month/user — Leading AI-powered recruiting CRM software with automated resume parsing, candidate scoring, and profile enrichment. Lets you post job ads on 2,500+ free and paid hiring channels.
  6. SalesforceCustom price — Robust platform with AI-powered staffing and recruiting functionality, resume parsing, candidate engagement, and 180-day onboarding support.
  7. Pipedrive$9.90/month/user — An easy-to-use recruitment platform with a simple drag-and-drop hiring workflow builder, email automation, and custom in-depth reports.
  8. HubSpot$1,600/month — Enterprise-level CRM that lets you build custom hiring workflows and email campaigns. Free for up to one million contacts with no data storage limit.
  9. Act!$31.62 — A centralized database for all your contacts, with built-in marketing automation and email, calendar, and activity tracking. Ideal for staffing agencies that want to build a large talent pool of qualified candidates for roles.
  10. ClearCompany — Quote-based — A robust talent management platform with a text-to-apply feature, onboarding templates, and a variety of performance management and employee engagement tools.

How Do Recruitment CRMs Work?

A CRM system for recruitment functions as a centralized database that holds all your candidate information in one place. This lets you track their progress through your recruitment pipeline, search their resumes, perform background checks, and efficiently engage promising candidates.

This dramatically reduces the time for recruitment cycles and improves your odds of landing top performers.

In addition to collating all the candidate information, recruitment CRMs provide you with valuable insights regarding your recruitment process.

You can see the percentage of clients that make it to the interview phase, their core skills, and their success rate on different job boards and platforms, such as LinkedIn, so you can optimize your recruitment pipeline and make smart, data-driven hiring decisions.

Do You Need An ATS or a CRM for Recruitment?

An ATS and a recruiting CRM are essential hiring tools that save tons of time and dramatically improve the outcome of your recruitment cycles. While they are fundamentally different, the line between the two is becoming blurred as more platforms offer solutions covering both sets of features.

The key distinction between the two is in the approach to hiring. With an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), you’ll actively look for candidates, post job ads with detailed job descriptions, administer tests, track candidates through your hiring funnel, and automate email correspondence.

A Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) system is used to build a database of potential candidates. It typically holds information on passive candidates – people who haven’t applied to your job ad – and lets your recruiters proactively reach out when there’s a job opening in your company.

The choice between the two depends on whether you’re going to be actively hiring or building a talent pipeline to facilitate future growth. That said, we believe a full-featured platform, like Monday, is the best option as it offers the best of both worlds and lets you attract job seekers and headhunt top performers in your niche.

The Best CRM Systems For Recruitment Reviewed

Here are our in-depth recruitment CRM reviews so you can see what different platforms offer, how much value you’ll get for your money with different vendors, and how the tools compare head-to-head.

1. Monday — Robust Platform that Merges the Features of a CRM and an ATS

Monday is a feature-rich platform that offers all the features and functionality of an ATS and a recruitment CRM. It’s also fully customizable, so you can easily adapt it using the intuitive drag-and-drop tools to visualize your recruitment pipeline and track each candidate with color-coded statuses.

With Monday, you can create different views for every aspect of your recruiting funnel. This includes list views for candidates in different stages of the funnel, Gantt charts to track different recruitment activities, timelines to monitor time to hire, and Calendar views to track and manage candidate interviews.

Monday.com

Best For Starting Price Free Version Standout Features Device Compatibility
Best overall $10/month/user Free-forever for 2 seats – Custom dashboards
– Workflow automations
– Seamless integrations
Windows, macOS, iOS, Android

You can also create multiple Dashboards to more easily access all the information you need. For example, you can have a dashboard that displays hiring rates on different platforms and job boards, one that provides insights on salary expectations for different positions, and one to monitor the performance of your recruiters.

A strong suit of Monday is its advanced automations. You can automate email correspondence with candidates, test delivery, and interview scheduling, as well as set up real-time notifications when candidates reach set stages of your hiring funnel.

This saves a ton of valuable time for your recruiters, so they can focus on going over resumes, grading tests, and holding interviews.

Additionally, you can leverage smart filters to sort applicants into different categories based on keywords in their resumes, specific soft and hard skills, years of experience, and other relevant factors.

The last compelling argument in favor of Monday over similar recruitment CRM software is that it easily integrates with the tools you’re already using. You can seamlessly connect it with Zapier, Slack, Google Calendar, Zoom, Gmail, and dozens of other apps to further streamline your processes and increase productivity.

If there’s one downside, it’s that the range of features can be overwhelming for beginners. Going beyond recruitment, we’ve also created a complete guide to Monday’s project management functionality – which naturally connects seamlessly.

Pros

  • Robust, feature-rich platform with full CRM and ATS functionality
  • Fully customizable views and dashboards
  • Advanced reporting and analytics on time to hire, hiring success rate, and salary expectations
  • Automated email correspondence with candidates
  • Easy integrations with your existing software stack

Cons

  • Number of features can be overwhelming for beginners

2. Zoho Recruit — Talent Acquisition Solution with AI Resume Parsing and Customizable Automation Workflows

Zoho Recruit is another comprehensive talent acquisition solution designed to help you discover, engage, and hire the best people for the job, regardless of where they’re located.

The biggest reason to opt for Zoho Recruit is the platform’s automation capabilities. With a single click, your recruiters can post a job ad on more than 75+ job boards, so you can reach thousands of candidates in a fraction of the time it would take to accomplish this posting ads manually.

Moreover, you can let Zoho’s smart AI do the heavy lifting and parse resumes for you, assign ratings to applicants, identify where core skills match your job requirements, and provide a shortlist of the best candidates in seconds.

Zoho Recruit

Best For Starting Price Free Version Standout Features Device Compatibility
Parsing resumes and identifying candidates with AI $26/month/user Free-forever plan for 1 job opening – One-click posting
– Employee referral portal
– Career site builder
Windows, macOS, iOS, Android

Zoho also lets you attract candidates by providing you with tools and guides to build a dedicated career website. This helps increase your company’s visibility and passively attract the right type of candidates with the right skill set so you can build a strong talent pool.

You can also set up an employee referral portal to incentivize the top performers already in your team to refer friends and contacts in the industry to your company. They get a bonus for their effort, while you get qualified people who are aligned with your company culture to join your team.

Once you have a candidate talent pool, you can use filters to split them into groups based on location, skill set, experience, salary expectations, and more. You can view candidates and incoming applications in a single dashboard, so it’ll be easy to compare applicants and narrow down your options before interviewing.

Zoho Recruit also ensures an excellent candidate experience, which is often the difference between the top performers choosing your company over a competitor.

You can design custom automation workflows in Zoho to engage candidates, inform them of the following steps as soon as they complete each stage of your hiring process, send offer letters, request digital signatures on contracts, assign them pre-onboarding tasks, and provide them with all the info they need before their first day.

As a comprehensive hiring tool that’s part of a broader business software toolset, Zoho is very comparable to Monday. That said, it’s a little more expensive, and some features, like API calls and bulk emailing, are paid add-ons.

Pros

  • One-click posting on 75+ job boards
  • Build a dedicated career site and employee referral portal
  • Smart filters that let you create diverse candidate pools
  • AI resume parsing and candidate grading
  • Superb candidate experience thanks to advanced automation workflows

Cons

  • Features like bulk emailing and API calls are paid add-ons

3. Teamtailor — All-in-One Recruiting Platform With a Simple Drag-and-Drop Career Site Builder

Teamtailor is a powerful, all-in-one recruiting tool that helps you attract, nurture, and hire top talent with ease. The platform lets you customize and automate virtually every part of your hiring process so you can identify the most promising candidates faster and engage them at the right time.

The main reason to opt for Teamtailor is the easy-to-use career website builder. It features a simple drag-and-drop tool, lets you choose from a wide variety of professional images to add to the site, and allows you to embed videos, gifs, and custom forms.

All the applications are collated in your Teamtailor dashboard, and candidates are automatically scored on all relevant skills based on their responses, so you’ll be able to identify the most promising ones at a glance.

Teamtailor

Best For Starting Price Free Version Standout Features Device Compatibility
Building a career site and gathering feedback Quote-based 14-day trial – Drag-and-drop career site builder
– Live Chat widget for career site
– Email automation
Windows, macOS, Android, iOS

Teamtailor also features email templates that you can fully customize and send out to candidates when they reach particular stages in the hiring process. The templates are flexible, so you can add headers, useful links, gifs, and videos to engage applicants.

The platform also features an interview scheduler that integrates with your calendar, allowing you to easily pick available dates and schedule interviews with the best candidates in seconds.

Teamtailor also lets you measure candidate experience by sending out surveys to applicants and starting conversations with people who visit your career site, thanks to a live chat widget. This makes Teamtailor the best option for gathering feedback and seeing the results of your hiring efforts.

The one gripe we have with the platform is the fact that it doesn’t offer public pricing like Monday, Zoho Recruit, and the majority of other platforms. Instead, you have to fill out a form to request a personalized quote. That said, you can still book a demo or try Teamtailor for free to get a feel for how it works in practice.

Pros

  • Super easy to use
  • Guarantees an excellent candidate experience
  • Lets you build a career site in minutes
  • Supports custom job application forms
  • Automates email correspondence and interview scheduling

Cons

  • Quote-based pricing
  • Lack of dashboard customization options

4. Rippling — Flexible Recruitment Platform With Advanced Automation and Customizable Reports

Rippling is a talent management system that merges recruiting and professional development, giving you a dedicated platform you can use to identify, engage, hire, and onboard new members, as well as help them further develop their skills and grow with your company.

Similarly to Zoho, Rippling lets you post your job opening on dozens of hiring platforms with a single click. Since the application link is the same regardless of where you post the job ads, applications will all funnel into your Rippling dashboard, and you’ll be able to see all candidates in one place.

The platform itself provides a ton of flexibility, so you’ll be able to fully customize all your workflows and processes.

Rippling

Best For Starting Price Free Version Standout Features Device Compatibility
Custom-built reports for every aspect of hiring Quote-based N/A  – 90-second onboarding
– Learning management
– Smart scheduling
Windows, macOS, iOS, Android

You can set up custom interview stages and tests for all the different open positions, build completely different recruitment pipelines for different positions or departments, set up approval workflows, and configure real-time alerts for every stage of the hiring funnel.

What’s even more impressive is that Rippling lets you build custom reports for virtually any recruitment metric, including time-to-hire, success of different job boards, candidate feedback, average expected salary for every role, and more.

Compared to Monday and Zoho Recruit, Rippling offers a lot more reporting flexibility, but it also requires more knowledge and experience with ATS and CRM software to utilize fully.

Aside from job posting and reporting, Rippling lets you automate interview scheduling, so you’ll never have to worry about double-booking candidates or missing interviews. The software supports integration with Outlook and Google calendars and lets you see recruiters’ availability in real-time, so you can schedule accordingly.

After you identify the best candidates, Rippling can help you seamlessly onboard them by helping you handle the paperwork, set up payroll and benefits, provide the necessary equipment to new hires, and set up accounts for all the tools you’re using so they’re ready to get started the moment they join your team.

Pros

  • One-click posting on 50+ job boards
  • Full control over workflow and processes
  • Build custom reports for hiring metrics
  • Built-in calendar integration and smart scheduling
  • Streamlined onboarding and learning & development

Cons

  • Navigating the UI and building custom reports takes some skill
  • No public pricing information

5. Manatal — Leading AI-Powered Recruiting Software, With Automated Resume Parsing and Candidate Scoring

Manatal is an AI recruiting software solution designed to fast-track candidate sourcing and recruiting. The smart AI is responsible for parsing candidate CVs and assigning matching scores based on their skills and your job requirements.

This completely eliminates the need to go through every CV manually and lets your recruiters focus on the best of the best so they can engage and sign top performers faster than competing companies.

When you combine the AI talent acquisition capabilities with the insane reach you get from posting on over 2,500 free and premium hiring channels, you’ll end up with hundreds of qualified candidates to choose from, so you’ll have no trouble building a team of superstars.

Manatal

Best For Starting Price Free Version Standout Features Device Compatibility
Automatic candidate scoring and AI profile enrichment $15/month/user 14-day trial – Over 2,500 hiring channels
– AI recommendations
– Career page with custom forms
Windows, macOS, Android, iOS

Manatal’s AI doesn’t stop at candidate scoring. In addition to comparing skills and experiences against the job requirements, the AI can enrich the candidate’s profiles and provide your recruiters with links to candidates’ LinkedIn profiles, locations, their GitHub contributions, and more.

Another reason to choose Manatal is the ability to set up a fully customized career page, similar to Zoho Recruit’s dedicated career site.

The main difference, however, is that you can have the page up and ready in minutes with Manatal, even if you have no experience whatsoever, thanks to an easy-to-customize template and simple drag-and-drop editor.

Lastly, Manatal can also be used to facilitate onboarding. The tool provides both your managers and the new hire with an onboarding checklist so you can ensure they have all the credentials set up, access to all crucial documents, and physical equipment ready for their first day.

Pros

  • AI-powered candidate scoring
  • AI candidate profile enrichment
  • Access to over 2,500+ hiring channels
  • Easy-to-use career page builder
  • Excellent mobile application

Cons

  • UI is full of information and can be overwhelming

6. Salesforce — Robust Platform With AI-Powered Staffing and Recruiting Functionality

Salesforce is often mentioned when talking about customer relationship management rather than recruiting, but the comprehensive platform does feature solid staffing and recruiting functionality as well.

With Salesforce, you can build custom workflows and leverage automations to engage new candidates, deliver tests via email, provide information regarding the next steps in your hiring funnel, and automate offers and rejection emails.

If you opt for Salesforce, you’ll be able to use it as a centralized database for all your client and candidate information.

Salesforce

Best For Starting Price Free Version Standout Features Device Compatibility
Automate admin work with Salesforce AI Quote-based N/A – Resume parsing
– 180-day onboarding support
– Custom reports
Windows, macOS, Android, iOS

In addition to collating all the candidate info in one place, Salesforce also leverages the power of AI to parse resumes across 140+ fields to find the best match for your company and enrich candidate profiles so your recruiters can identify top talent faster than your competitors.

The smart AI can also generate emails, engage in conversations with your candidates, and even come up with personalized offers based on skills, experience, and job role.

Everything the AI does is based on your business’ real-time data, so you can lean back and let the AI handle the admin work, making Salesforce a solid CRM software for recruitment companies that handle thousands of applications.

With all that being said, it’s important to understand that Salesforce doesn’t offer a standalone ATS or recruitment CRM, like Monday, Zoho, and Rippling, and other entries on our list do.

This means you’ll have to either utilize Salesforce for other areas of your business as well, such as sales, marketing, and customer service or negotiate a fully custom solution with the vendor.

Pros

  • Best CRM for recruitment agencies
  • Custom workflows and automations
  • AI-generated emails and offers based on your real-time data
  • AI resume parsing and candidate profile enrichment
  • Onboarding support for the first 180 days at the company

Cons

  • Requires decent technical knowledge to fully utilize

7. Pipedrive — Easy-To-Use Platform With a Drag-and-Drop Hiring Workflow Builder

Pipedrive is a sharp contrast to Salesforce in that it focuses solely on recruiting and candidate engagement. It’s designed to facilitate application tracking and free up the time of everyone involved in recruiting – HR, department heads, managers, and CEOs – by letting you streamline your entire recruitment process.

With Pipedrive, you can create an end-to-end recruitment pipeline, see every incoming application in one dashboard, nurture candidates with timely responses and reminders, and organize them by interview stage.

The platform features a simple drag-and-drop tool that lets you visualize your entire recruitment process, attach automated emails to every stage in the hiring funnel, and set up reminders and approval workflows.

Pipedrive

Best For Starting Price Free Version Standout Features Device Compatibility
Custom-built hiring workflows with auto-emailing $9.90/month/user 14-day trial – Drag-and-drop workflow builder
– Full email sync with templates
– Seamless integrations
Windows, macOS, Android, iOS

In addition to fast-tracking active recruitment, Pipedrive can help you source promising candidates and build a searchable talent acquisition network. This lets your recruiters easily find the talent with the right skills and sufficient experience when a new spot opens on your team.

Another area where Pipedrive excels is reporting and analytics. You’ll be able to set up KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to measure against, such as application volume, time-to-hire, and average salary expectation for different positions, so you’ll be able to see the success of your recruiting efforts in real-time.

Pipedrive easily integrates with business tools, such as Zapier, Mixmax, Aircall, PandaDoc, and Slack. You can also connect the recruitment platform with Pipedrive Campaigns and design personalized, trigger-based email campaigns to be sent to every candidate entering your hiring funnel.

The one thing Pipedrive is lacking is the ability to create a career website or page, so your recruiters will still have to manually post job ads and headhunt people on LinkedIn and popular job platforms.

Pros

  • Simple drag-and-drop workflow builder
  • Real-time alerts whenever candidates reach set stages
  • Create and connect fully automated, personalized email campaigns
  • In-depth reporting based on a variety of KPIs
  • Excellent integration capabilities

Cons

  • No career page builder
  • Dated UI

8. HubSpot — Enterprise-Level CRM, Free for Up to 1 Million Contacts

HubSpot is an all-feature platform that can be used to enhance virtually every aspect of your business, from sales and marketing to operations and customer service.

While HubSpot doesn’t have a dedicated recruitment module, it offers dozens of tools that will help make your recruiters’ lives easier, such as an interview scheduler, email templates and an AI email writer, and even live chat software that you can use to provide information to promising candidates in real-time.

With HubSpot, you’ll also have the full freedom to create custom hiring workflows that align with your organization’s unique processes and connect them with different email campaigns to automate candidate correspondence.

HubSpot

Best For Starting Price Free Version Standout Features Device Compatibility
Enterprise-level CRM $1,600/month Free for up to 1m contacts – Email templates
– AI email writer
– Meeting scheduler
Windows, macOS, Android, iOS

The obvious downside is that you have to have considerable technical knowledge, as well as previous experience with the HubSpot platform, in order to build the hiring functionality from scratch.

That said, you can get started with HubSpot CRM for free, so you can take your time to learn the ins and outs of the platform before upgrading to a paid plan.

You’ll be able to save up to a million contacts, both candidates and clients, and there’s no limit regarding the number of users who can utilize the platform or the amount of candidate data you can store.

Another reason to opt for HubSpot is the fact that it provides you with a wealth of valuable information you need to make smart, data-driven business decisions that foster growth.

In addition to letting you create custom dashboards and generate in-depth reports to glean valuable insights into your recruiting efforts, it also gives you crucial information on the performance of your sales, marketing, content, and operations departments.

Pros

  • Free to use for up to 1 million contacts
  • Gives you complete freedom to build a custom hiring workflow
  • Dozens of email templates and an AI email writer
  • Store an unlimited amount of candidate data
  • Generates in-depth reports on every aspect of your business

Cons

  • Build hiring functionality from scratch requires some technical expertise

9. Act! — Centralized Database for All Your Contacts, With Built-in Marketing Automation

Act! is a full-featured CRM and marketing automation tool that helps businesses streamline their operations, facilitate communication with leads, prospects, clients, and candidates, and reduce admin work.

The platform also acts as a central repository for all contact information and acts as a recruitment database software, with smart search functions that enable you to find the person you’re looking for in seconds.

While most businesses use the platform to collect leads, nurture them, and gradually convert them into paying customers, recruiters can also leverage Act! to build a pool of qualified candidates for virtually any role.

Act!

Best For Starting Price Free Version Standout Features Device Compatibility
Staffing agencies headhunting top performers $31.62 + $9 for desktop sync 14-day trial – Marketing automation
– Automatic backups
– Calendar, email, and activity tracking
Windows, macOS, Android, iOS

Since Act! doesn’t have a built-in capability to track applications, it’s the most useful for staffing agencies that are headhunting top performers on various job boards and platforms like LinkedIn.

After adding the candidate information to the database, recruiters can apply filters and perform quick searches to find the person who best fits a particular job opening.

You’ll also be able to send email blasts to your entire contact list or a specific segment to alert them of new job openings, share the latest industry news, or gather data on job satisfaction or average compensation for specific roles in different industries, for example.

Pros

  • Recruiting database software with smart search functions
  • Built-in marketing automation with industry-specific email templates
  • Easy database search to find specific contacts in seconds
  • Email tracking with real-time notifications
  • Comprehensive analytics dashboards and reporting

Cons

  • Have to manually add all contact information
  • No ATS functionality, so you have to rely on headhunting

10. ClearCompany — Robust Talent Management Platform With a Text-to-Apply Feature

ClearCompany is a robust talent management software product that helps you grow your team by identifying and hiring top performers. It can help you drive company culture to provide employee job satisfaction and maximize staff productivity.

In addition to automating recurring HR tasks, ClearCompany provides pre-built hiring blueprints and integrates your top performers’ profiles into your hiring funnel.

This helps ensure you ask the right interview questions, evaluate candidates fairly, and select the best applicants with the highest chance of integrating well into your existing company culture.

ClearCompany dashboard

Best For Starting Price Free Version Standout Features Device Compatibility
Talent acquisition, onboarding, and engagement Quote-based N/A – Text-to-apply
– Streamlined onboarding
– Performance management
Windows, macOS

The platform also guarantees a superb candidate experience by giving top talent multiple ways to apply and makes it easy for you to provide them with real-time feedback on the status of their application.

You can also use ClearCompany to build a visually stunning, candidate-friendly career site with built-in job search tools, filters, and application forms.

What you’ll also love about this recruitment CRM is the ability to recruit via text messages. This enables your recruiters to bulk text every person they’ve headhunted with links to your career site or job ads, so they can check out job openings in seconds.

An additional benefit of this approach is that SMS messages have a much higher open rate than emails or DMs on LinkedIn or other job platforms – so you’re more likely to get a response from these A-players.

ClearCompany also facilitates onboarding with ready-made templates so your new hires know exactly what they need to do from day one, and your team can make sure they have all the accounts and logins set up in advance.

And it doesn’t end there. Once your new hire settles in, ClearCompany lets you engage them with talent management tools, such as employee surveys and custom engagement strategies, to help boost job satisfaction and improve your employee retention.

Pros

  • Easy-to-use career site builder
  • Bulk texting of candidates and text-to-apply
  • Native integrations with popular video interviewing tools
  • Onboarding templates and streamlined employee engagement

Cons

  • No mobile apps

The Best CRMs for Recruitment Compared

Here’s a quick recruitment CRM software comparison table so you can get a better overview of what each of the tools excels at and how much money you have to set aside per month for different solutions:

Recruiting CRM Software Best For Starting Price Free Version Standout Features Device Compatibility
Monday Best overall $10/month/user Free-forever for 2 seats – Custom dashboards
– Workflow automations
– Seamless integrations
Windows, macOS, iOS, Android
Zoho Recruit Parsing resumes and identifying candidates with AI $26/month/user Free-forever plan for 1 job opening – One-click posting
– Employee referral portal
– Career site builder
Windows, macOS, iOS, Android
Teamtailor Building a career site and gathering feedback Quote-based 14-day trial – Drag-and-drop career site builder
– Live Chat widget for career site
– Email automation
Windows, macOS, Android, iOS
Rippling Custom-built reports for every aspect of hiring Quote-based N/A – 90-second onboarding
– Learning management
– Smart scheduling
Windows, macOS, iOS, Android
Manatal Automatic candidate scoring and AI profile enrichment $15/month/user 14-day trial – Over 2,500 hiring channels
– AI recommendations
– Career page with custom forms
Windows, macOS, Android, iOS
Salesforce Automate admin work with Salesforce AI Quote-based N/A – Resume parsing
– 180-day onboarding support
– Custom reports
Windows, macOS, Android, iOS
Pipedrive Custom-built hiring workflows with auto-emailing $9.90/month/user 14-day trial – Drag-and-drop workflow builder
– Full email sync with templates
– Seamless integrations
Windows, macOS, Android, iOS
HubSpot Enterprise-level CRM $1,600/month Free for up to 1m contacts – Email templates
– AI email writer
– Meeting scheduler
Windows, macOS, Android, iOS
Act! Staffing agencies headhunting top performers $31.62 + $9 for desktop sync 14-day trial – Marketing automation
– Automatic backups
– Calendar, email, and activity tracking
Windows, macOS, Android, iOS
ClearCompany Talent acquisition, onboarding, and engagement Quote-based N/A – Text-to-apply
– Streamlined onboarding
– Performance management
Windows, macOS

Key Details to Consider When Purchasing CRM Software for Recruitment

As you’ve seen from our reviews, recruitment CRM software solutions can vary drastically in terms of functionality and pricing.

In order to get the best value for your money and ensure you opt for a recruitment CRM that meets your company’s needs, you have to pay attention to the following factors, whether you’re considering Monday or Bullhorn CRM:

Ease of Use

The best CRM for recruitment isn’t necessarily the one with the most features. Quite the contrary, if you opt for a robust platform that offers dozens of features on top of recruiting, your HR team might be overwhelmed by the sheer number of features and customization options.

That’s why we recommend opting for an intuitive solution that’s fairly easy to use. Platforms like Monday, for example, make it easy for recruiters to sort the candidates, find the information they’re looking for, and engage the top-performing ones.

The UI is clean and simple, and everything is color-coded, so any HR professional can master the tool in a week or two without any previous CRM knowledge or experience.

Level of Customization

While simplicity is certainly a plus, you should also make sure that the tool is not too rigid. Put simply, recruiting management software should allow you to create custom workflows that reflect your unique recruiting processes.

For example, some companies only have one interview stage, while others might want to schedule separate interviews with the HR, department heads, and the CEO. The flexibility to add and remove particular stages to and from your hiring funnel is a must.

Additionally, the best CRMs for recruiting should also let you customize the email sequences that are automatically sent whenever a candidate completes a stage of the hiring process.

Key Features and Functionality

Depending on your needs, the key features you should look out for may vary. For example, a CRM for recruitment agencies doesn’t really need a career website builder since you’re hiring for dozens of other companies and won’t benefit from a single application form.

What you need in that instance is a tool like Manatal that lets you post on 2,500 job boards. Alternatively, if you’re hiring for an open position in your company, you’d want a website builder, as well as AI resume parsing and candidate scoring.

Other key features include automated email correspondence, interview scheduling, HR dashboards, reporting and analytics, and new employee onboarding.

Integrations

It’s crucial that your chosen recruitment CRM integrates with the other tools you’re using. For example, native integrations with your Google Calendar enable you to allow the candidates to select the most convenient time when scheduling an interview.

Slack integration lets you receive real-time notifications to your preferred Slack channel, so your recruiters will never miss a promising candidate even if they’re not logged into the CRM’s dashboard.

Other useful integrations include Zapier, Gmail, PandaDoc, and similar apps and tools.

Free Trials

A free trial or a free plan is the best way to test out a recruitment CRM in practice. Since the CRM will be an integral part of your hiring process, it’s often a long-term investment, so you want to make sure that you’ve got the right tool for the job before committing to a monthly or annual payment plan.

Price

When it comes to the price of online recruitment software, what’s vital to understand is that most platforms will charge you based on the number of users. So, if you’re planning on having five people use the software on a regular basis, you’ll have to multiply the price by five.

Additionally, not every feature is going to be available on every pricing plan. So, carefully go through the list of features available on different pricing plans before you make your choice. Also, keep an eye out for other fees and charges.

Do Free Recruitment CRMs Work?

They do work, but the functionality of free recruitment CRM is limited. The reason for this is that you’ll be locked out of the bulk of the key features.

Let’s take Monday as an example. The free forever plan limits you to only two users and lets you have a maximum of three boards at any given time.

While you’ll still have access to all the core features and over 200+ templates, you’ll lack advanced functionality like automations, integrations, custom dashboard building, Gantt and Timeline views, time tracking, dependencies, and more.

While a free recruitment CRM is a great way to test out a tool in practice before committing to a paid plan, it’s not a good choice as a long-term solution. If you want to consistently attract and hire top talent, we strongly recommend investing in a paid solution to ensure you have the best candidate management software.

Online Recruitment Software Guides and Resources

If you want to learn more about recruitment software, Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), and Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS), check out our list of helpful guides:

Conclusion – What’s the Best CRM for Recruiting in 2023?

As you’ve seen from our reviews, there are quite a few excellent recruitment CRM software solutions on the market, so you have plenty of options at your disposal.

It’s important to assess your business needs and compare the functionality and pricing plans of different solutions to ensure you opt for the one that’s the best fit for your business.

That said, after reviewing and comparing the 10 leading CRMs for recruiting, we’d say that the title of the overall best recruitment CRM goes to Monday.

It’s intuitive and easy to use despite offering all the functionality of an ATS and a CRM in one platform – and it offers a way to test the product in practice without committing to a paid plan.

Recruiting CRM Software FAQs

What’s CRM’s meaning in recruitment?

What are the advantages of using a CRM tool for candidates?

What’s the best recruitment CRM for small businesses?

How much do recruitment CRMs cost?

Does recruiting CRM software work?

What is the best free CRM for recruitment?

References

Aleksandar Stevanovic

Alex is a Senior Software Content Writer at Techopedia. He focuses on creating reader-oriented comparison pages, reviews, research pieces, and editorials. With nearly a decade of experience, he’s written for numerous leading brands across various niches, such as The Tech Report, Bitcoincasinos.com, CEX.IO, Forbes, Business2Community, and many more. His expertise in cybersecurity has made him a popular authority on privacy tools such as VPNs, password managers, blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, and antivirus software. You'll find Alex working on cars, playing guitar, and cooking fantastic food in his spare time. You can reach Alex on Twitter: @stevanovic_alex